NATIONAL CITY  Chula Vista-based boatyard Marine Group Boat Works has reached an agreement with the Port of San Diego to take over a bankrupt competitor’s lease in National City starting April 1.

They reached their deal after negotiations for the Knight & Carver property spilled into the public forum in early March. Marine Group said the Port was trying to use the National City deal as leverage to move the boatyard from its original Chula Vista location, and Port employees said Marine Group had failed to demonstrate its ability to pay for and clean up the site.

The Board of Port Commissioners at its March 5 meeting put the port’s chairwoman, CEO and city attorney in charge of negotiating the terms of the lease takeover. They reached an agreement by March 20, and the deal is set to close March 31.

One client fears the takeover will mean fewer options for him when he’s shopping for repairs and maintenance on his larger ships.

“What it comes down is, for us to have some kind of choice around port tidelands about where we take our boats for repair,” said Jim Unger, vice president of Hornblower Cruises & Events. “We would be in a — even though we respect our competitor — a monopoly situation.”

Although there are other boatyards in San Diego besides Marine Group, he explained, most of them are too small to service his larger vessels.

Port public information officer Tanya Castaneda said it’s hard to imagine there being a monopoly for large ship repairs when not only are there other boatyards in San Diego Bay, but there are a host of others in nearby ports.

“There’s nothing preventing a boater from going to boatyards in Long Beach, Los Angeles and even Mexico,” she said. “In fact, we get boats that come from L.A. at times because they have gotten a better bid down here.”

Marine Group Boat Works Vice President Todd Roberts said there is still plenty of choice in the regional market, and Marine Group will continue to battle it out.

Meanwhile, Marine Group plans to expand operations to the old Knight & Carver site on April 1, allowing the company to do more work in a shorter amount of time, reducing wait times for its clients.

The company will have to do some cleanup before the boatyard is running at full capacity, Roberts said. That means 11 new employees out the gate and an estimated 40 or 50 more within the next several months.

“We’ll just be doing some repairs and maintenance to improve the appearance, and lining up work as fast as we can to keep us busy,” Roberts said.